


To Rest the Mind and Soul

by Blue Rose (HailsRose)



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst, Because I Can't Seem to Write a Single DMC Fic Without Some Combination of All Three of Those, Blood and Violence, Content Kiiind of Pushes the T Rating a Bit, Gen, Gen Fic, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, just a warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27199423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HailsRose/pseuds/Blue%20Rose
Summary: You called for help…but no one came.You called for help…and someone answered.| Or two contrasting snapshots in which V called for help and the unexpected responded.
Relationships: Nero & V (Devil May Cry), Nero & Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 100





	To Rest the Mind and Soul

**Author's Note:**

> I'm aware I'm behind on Deep Calls to Deep and just about everything else right now T_T but I read Visions of V chapter 26 and had myself a little cry festival after which I went on a flash fiction writing streak to get my mojo back. It kind of worked? And I'm way proud of this so I'm posting it for all of you to read. 
> 
> Now I will go hide behind this conveniently placed shield because I know I'm gonna have at least one person shrieking at me for angst.

Vergil hears them before he sees them. The high, hissing whispers of a knot of sword-wielding demons— _Hell Crusaders._

He pushes off the playground equipment, dodging the silver arc of a sword’s path as it flies toward him. Confusion makes way for fear, demons have never pursued his family before, but his father warned him they might and they’re here now. He hurtles into the dirt face-first, barely gathering his hands close enough to heave himself up and take off towards the house. He’s like a bullet. He tears through the forest and fields, the relentless beating of the earth coming up to meet him, grounding him to his goal: mom and Dante. _He has to find mom and Dante._

A searing metallic scent scorches the air. He skids to a stop, kicking up a rolling cloud of ash whisked away by the vindictive flames devouring his home. Frozen in place, eyes wide as he stares in breathless horror.

It’s gone.

_Everything is go-_

A long, thin blade thrusts through Vergil’s chest, slick with blood—his blood. A well-placed blow to the back shoves him to the ground. Unable to brace for impact, the breath is knocked clean out of him, and he inhales a mouthful of fine powder. There’s stinging pain on his tongue and the coppery taste of drawn blood as it deluges in his mouth and it’s only hazily he realizes he bit his tongue. He can barely move but he forces his head up to stare at the blazing remains of his house, hellish heat billowing off of it in dizzying waves. He reaches his hand out towards home, desperate to hold it in his hand, to have Dante at his side and his mother carrying him to safety.

He chokes on a breath, the last one he’ll ever take as an innocent and faithful child, and watches in agony as a sword stabs clean through his palm. He feels the next one, an excruciating spear straight through his neck. Then between his shoulder blades. Then through his stomach. In that moment, all he knows is pain.

_It hurts._

He screams, tears gushing down his cheeks, blood pooling around his body. He screams, pleading with someone to save him. He screams until his throat is raw and burning. 

_Help me._

He isn’t sure how long he’s there, how long the demons cackle and snarl at him, spitting out his name like it’s the poison of the Underworld: _Sparda. The Dark Knight. The traitor._

_Someone!_

_Anyone._

_Help me!_

He calls out for anyone at all. But no one comes.

It’s then that the cognizance dawns on him. He’s alone. Wounded and abandoned, and no one is coming to his aid. _He’ll have to save himself. Power. He needs… power. He needs strength. He needs-_

“The Yamato?”

He doesn’t understand. The Yamato was a gift from his father, tethered to his soul as a baby and preserved by his mother, never to be unsheathed until the day he called for it. _Strange,_ his battered mind supplies, _that a weapon with no voice to cry with is the one who comes to his aid._ Fine by him. He’ll kill the demons himself.

He seizes the Yamato, small, far too young hands curling around her braided handle. Her blade sweetly sings as he unsheathes her, cutting through his enemies with ease. They screech and crumble to ash before him, flowing with life one second, returned to the Underworld the very next.

Vergil turns his gaze upon the house, glassy-eyed and distant. Somewhere in the future, his memories will fade out into misty dimness, and he won’t remember what he sees when he drifts into the still-burning house—his mother, lying lifeless in a bath of her own blood, embers singeing her golden aura. He won’t remember the distant rumbling of thunder or how the frigidness of a storm crawls through his soul or scales as black as midnight envelope his skin, navy blue wings bursting from his back. He won’t remember the freezing wind he unleashes to snuff the flames, a wintry layer of frost blanketing the room. He won’t remember how cold and stiff his mother’s cheek feels as he cups her face one last time and plants a kiss on her forehead.

He’ll only remember that he was alone, unprotected, and unloved.

**\---**

**_“Malphas!”_** Griffon quietly shouts, barely loud enough for V to hear. His talons dig into V’s shoulder, tense and anxious. **“No way we can handle her. We don’t have the strength!”**

“I know,” V replies. The ledge which he and Griffon are situated on has the perfect vantage point of this pocket of the Qliphoth where Malphas has taken up residence. She seems content talking to herself, conniving on her own uprising against Urizen. “But we must get through this somehow.”

There’s no other option. He’s accepted his duty and knows he must be there to make the finishing strike. He’s going to die no matter what and if he never had a choice as a babe, then he’s going to grasp the opportunity to have one now and he chooses the method of death that will ensure a piece of him lives on. He chooses _forcing_ Urizen to understand just how important humanity and all its pieces are. Love and strength and will power based on nothing but hope—fragile and fraying, a candle in a raging storm—are what will keep them alive. Together.

So, he must reach Dante and the Qliphoth’s fruit. The question is: _how?_

Clearly, it’s not to move before he should and make the ledge fall apart underneath his cane. Not when Malphas is close enough to hear it. She whirls at the sound, leaving less than a second for V to scramble back against the wall and press himself into it, praying he’s avoided her wrath.

He has no such luck. Just fate, grim and dour, creeping up on him, eager to consume. The terror of when he was a child encroaches in his mind, spines of varying sorts piercing through to eradicate the last of Sparda’s kin. She pursues ever closer, monstrous footfalls crunching the ground beneath her. V’s breathing picks up, coming in rapid bursts as violent quivering starts in his fingertips and climbs over every inch of him. Every step, every second that passes, the thought that he’s going to die reaches his mind, and before he’s ready. He tries to summon Griffon, Shadow, even Nightmare, begging for their help.

But they refuse.

They’re too weak, too frightened to stand up to a demon of Malphas’ caliber. As dangerous as they are, they are also just the recollection of a bad dream long past, and they can’t so much as nick her solid defense.

 _Please._ V tries again, as humble as he can make himself. There’s a world-weary growling in the depths of his body as Shadow shrinks against the darkness Malphas casts upon them. Griffon says something to the effect of not risking a stalemate because if V dies, they all die. Nightmare’s voice is loud and deafening like the horn of a cargo ship wailing from the vast sea but spoken where only V can hear it.

 **“I’m coomiiing~”** Malphas sings.

_Help me._

V pleads, squeezing his eyes shut, grip on his composure slipping.

_Someone._

_Anyone._

_Help me._

A revolver’s shot ricochets across the back of Malphas’ head, its sound is stark and piercing in a mostly silent room. Nero strides from the shadows, confident and almost blinding in his strength. He lifts Blue Rose up to waggle it around a bit, taunting the demon with all the conviction of a Roman god about to rain down righteous judgment. A smile pulls at his lips.

Relief floods through V, washing all the tension away. Nero is here. _Nero is here._ V’s never prayed once before but after this battle, he just might offer up thanks drenched in meekness. He’s never been happier to see a fellow devil hunter.

The fight rockets off in an explosion of magic and gunfire. Nero is vicious as he rips through every single one of Malphas’ attacks, unrelenting with each counter and dodge and even more so with each strike—soaked in the Red Queen’s orange and glowing fire. He’s like hope, always on the brink of going out yet scorning the very idea of it. He’s the truth, why everything in the world suddenly makes so much sense to V, why he’s fought to keep living even this long. Thoughtlessly, he wonders. If Nero had been there when he was a child, would he have the love and protection he craved so much throughout the rest of his life?

 _Foolish,_ V scolds himself. Nero wasn’t alive then; he wouldn’t have been able to save him. But if someone like Nero had… then maybe… No. No more lingering on the what-ifs. What’s done is done. It can’t be changed. Not now, not ever. But what has yet to come can.

“You can come out!” Nero’s voice is so abrupt and piercing, V almost misses it. He’s grateful for the interruption to his mental scape as Griffon makes like a broken bolt of lightning, hell-bent for leather, and practically throws him to the ground with what little strength he has left. V heaves himself to his feet, enough difficulty in his actions that it doesn’t go unnoticed, definitely not to Nero who can see that he’s falling apart at the seams. He has the sincerity to say so. “You should turn around. Your body’s not gonna last much longer.”

V can’t do that. He must go. Even when he’s so helpless and forced to swallow his pride like a pill when he drops to the ground, only spared the humiliation by Nero catching him. Nero swears, not letting on that he’s just as exhausted after skulking around the Qliphoth earlier than should be reasonably okay for a human being. Nero might be a bit of a hypocrite. Just a bit.

“Dammit V. Don’t push yourself. You need some rest.”

And V would love it. But he can’t. He’s in the home stretch. If he gives up now, then all is lost. No amount of Nero demanding answers from him will convince him to stray from his promise to finish what he started. He’s messed up, that’s more than apparent, so what kind of dishonor does he risk placing on himself if he cedes now?

Not one he’s willing to shoulder, that’s for certain.

“I beg you!” V shouts. The unfamiliar pressure of tears starts behind his eyes, threatening to unleash a torrent he’s done so well to keep locked up for so many years. He feels _pathetic,_ breaking now. Is he genuinely so lost in a void of terror and remorse that he’d cry now? No. It can wait for when he’s safe. “This is my last request.”

V drowns his pride, entreating Nero with everything he has. This child has repeatedly saved him today. Asking him to do it again is like an ache lifted after so long of holding onto its weight. He’s relieved he managed to stop being so arrogant.

Nero’s not happy about it. But he carries V to his final destination to help him put his soul to rest regardless, bearing all of the emotional baggage and outright half-witted stubbornness pouring out of this decaying form. He lets V unload himself about how when he so dearly craved affection and protection and love, he was denied it. Power was given to him in its stead. Power that never helped him but only ripped a rift between him and his only family.

In the end, when V has returned to himself, Nero is clearly out of his mind enough to jump that entire rift, no matter how broad and uncrossable it is, and tie them together, consequences damned to the deepest, darkest parts of hell. He’s willing to provide everything Vergil’s ever wanted. He’s willing to love Vergil as fiercely and unflinchingly as no one else he’s met before.

But only after Nero has shrieked out all his abandonment issues and told Dante to shut the fuck up directly to his face—how perfect, actually—after which he straight proceeds to kick Vergil’s ass.

Which Vergil supposes… _he kind of deserves it._

**Author's Note:**

> Real talk: Nero's a good boy, though. The literal best. We don't deserve him. (And by 'we' I mean me and Vergil lmao)


End file.
